Character Spotlight: Ch’rell

The current run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics by IDW is trying to more or less be the definitive TMNT story by synthesizing all the Ninja Turtles media that came before it. As such, that means it has had a ton of canon immigrants and will continue to have many more.

This week: Ch’rell!

One of the great things about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is that each new adaptation feels free to do its own thing. And it's only with that freedom that we could get a character like Ch'rell.

Ch'rell was introduced by the 2003 animated series in the episode "Secret Origins, Part 1" (January 2004). In the episode, the Turtles are trying to learn how an alien race called the Utroms got to Earth, and they discovered it was because a Utrom ship passed by Earth while transporting an evil Utrom named Ch'rell, but the ship malfunctions and they crash land in 11th century Japan. Ch'rell escapes and steals an exosuit from another Utrom. It is also in this episode where the Turtles discover there was a Shredder that long ago as well. The next episode doesn't have that much information except that Shredder returns despite being previously decapitated, which is a clue to the big reveal of "Secret Origins, Part 3" (January 2004): Ch'rell has been Shredder the whole time! Not just from the beginning of the show, but since the 11th century.

Ch'rell has not been that active in the comics, unfortunately. We first meet him in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #56 (March 2016) - or more specifically, we don't meet him, because the whole plot is that while he's one of many Utroms that are kept in stasis and there's talk of waking all of them, the characters end up waking all the Utroms except Ch'rell because he's at least as dangerous as Krang.

Two years later, that changed in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe #22 (May 2018).

Where will he go from here? Will he take Krang's place in the narrative? Will he become the new Shredder? Will he take over a Triceraton's body like an abandoned plot from the 2003 series was going to have him do? I don't know, and knowing IDW, it might take four years to find out.